Lead Stories
In July the state of Massachusetts filed a civil complaint against convicted murderer Sean Smith, 34, on behalf of three of Smith’s fellow inmates who said he bilked them out of $55,000 in an investment scheme. And three days later a judge in Tampa denied tobacco-litigation lawyer Henry Valenzuela his $20 million share of $200 million set aside for legal fees from the state’s 1997 settlement with tobacco companies because he had been late paying his $2,500 share of a litigation expense.
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Can’t Possibly Be True
According to a March Boston Globe story, residents of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, are at the breaking point over the city’s ancient and deteriorating sewer system, which has resulted, according to one resident, in raw sewage in his basement and on city streets during every high tide of the past ten years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency believes repairs would be so costly that it has long exempted Portsmouth and 100 other New England communities from raw-sewage discharge regulations. The city manager said a solution is at least 10 to 15 years away.
Latest Philanthropy
In May four men aided by an employee of a movie theater in Menomonie, Wisconsin, stole a print of Star Wars: Episode I–The Phantom Menace. As the men lifted the three-foot-wide spool from the projector, it unraveled, leaving two miles of celluloid on the floor. The men scooped the mess up, took it home, and tried to wash the film in a bathtub to get rid of their fingerprints. They cut it up for disposal but finally decided to turn themselves in. Authorities said alcohol was involved in the caper. Each man got five days in jail.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Shawn Belschwender.
